Tracking dogs for finding wounded big game. Also dachshunds for blood tracking, field trials, their breeding, training and more.

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Wednesday, August 14, 2013

How to take good pictures of tracking dogs with recovered big game

Compiled by Jolanta Jeanneney

At the 2011 United Blood Trackers Trackfest at Pocahontas I had a short presentation about how you can improve your skills allowing you to take better pictures during tracking and hunting season. What follows is a summary of this powerpoint talk.

A good visual presentation has become even more important in the last few years. It is not a secret that with a growing popularity of social media, more and more people communicate visually. Pictures and videos are omnipresent.

And let's face it, if you have recovered a wounded deer and you are proud of your dog and your own effort, nothing is going to preserve you memory better than a good picture that you can share with others.

So, if you'd like your picture to look like this

and not like the one below, read on. Feel free to share your own advice through comments.

Choose
your camera wisely

Don’t count on
your cell phone to take good pictures under difficult conditions

A small
point-and-shoot camera should be just fine.

Don’t be too
concerned about a lot of megapixels! You do not need a huge number of
megapixels unless you are planning to do a large format printing. For example a
14 megapixel camera will take a 4320 x 3240 picture at a full resolution.
If you printed at the resolution of 200 dpi, this would give you a picture over
20 inches long. Most likely you will not be pursuing large formats like this.
Magazines usually require pictures at the 300 dpi resolution, and for 5 by 7 inch picture, you'd need just 1500 x 2100
pixels. To get a really nice print 8”x10” at the 300 dpi your file needs to be
2400 x 3000 pixels, easily achieved with a 7 megapixel camera. So, the bottom
line is that you do not need a camera with a very high number of pixels, and
more is not necessarily better.

Position
recovered game in a natural pose, fold the legs underneath or set it up on
its belly.

Look at the deer
or dog, don’t look straight into the camera

Take shots of
various combinations

hunter
with deer,

dog
with deer,

handler,
dog and deer

hunter,
deer, handler, dog

Experiment with
different depth of field. Try a “portrait” setting to make background not
as sharp as main objects.

Avoid too
much gore

Clean up the
animal, wash blood off

No animal tongue
hanging out

Pick the best
side (exit holes are messier than entrance holes)

Cover wound hole with a leaf or two

Lighting

Early morning or
late afternoon diffused light works the best

Avoid too much
contrast, take few shots with flash (fill flash)

Use anti-red eye flash
feature

Avoid
photographer’s shadow

Take hats off or at least raise the
brim so as not to create a strong shadow on the face.

Other Tips

Take few pictures of the animal
exactly as you have found it – showing everything. It may come in
handy for determining something you wish you knew later. Especially
if you plan on entering the animal in a record book.

Every time you save a Jpeg file, you
lose resolution. So don’t save the image every time you look at it. You
can save photos in other formats (tiff, png) that are not impacted by
this, but they may take up more memory.

Keep your image files organized well.

Get decent software like Adobe
Photoshop Elements for editing and improving your images. Learn how to use
it.

Best book about blood tracking dogs in English.

Who we are

John and I (Jolanta) breed and use wirehaired dachshunds for tracking wounded big game and hunting. We live in Berne, NY with 10 dachshunds. We are dog breeders, hunters, trackers, field trialers, educators, writers and self-publishers. Contact us atinfo@born-to-track.com. More info about us and our dogs at www.born-to-track.com

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All material, unless otherwise stated is Copyright (c) by Jolanta and John Jeanneney. All rights reserved. No Reproduction Allowed Without Prior Permission.No one has paid for a listing or reference on this blog.